THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 138, July 31, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CLIMATE PROPOSALS -- A THREAT TO OPPORTUNITY & JUSTICE:
A New Study Documents the Harmful Effects of
"Cap-&-Trade" & "Endangerment" Schemes
By Paul K. Driessen
ENVIRONMENTAL & ENERGY POLICIES IMPOSED IN THE NAME OF PREVENTING CLIMATE CHANGE: THE GREATEST
THREAT TO OPPORTUNITY, JUSTICE, CIVIL RIGHTS, & THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS & THE AMERICAN DREAM -- THE
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FOSSIL FUELS & THE ECONOMIC ENGINE THAT ENSURES JUSTICE & OPPORTUNITY IN AMERICA
TODAY -- THE ADVERSE IMPACT OF ANTI-ENERGY POLICIES SUCH AS CAP-&-TRADE LEGISLATION, CARBON TAXES,
GOVERNMENT RESTRICTIONS ON OIL DRILLING & COAL MINING, & EPA LIMITATIONS ON CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS --
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN ENERGY POLICIES & CIVIL RIGHTS
FULL STORY:
Environmental justice demands that the United States government address global warming, the gravest threat facing
minority Americans, insist the Environmental Protection Agency, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the U.S. White
House. Are they serious?
The alleged threat pales next to unwed teen motherhood, school dropouts, murder, and other crime. But even assuming
human carbon dioxide emissions will cause average global temperatures to rise a few degrees more than they already
have since the Little Ice Age ended, it is absurd to suggest that any such warming would harm minorities more than
policies imposed in the name of preventing climate change.
Human activities have not replaced the complex natural forces that drove climate change throughout Earth’s history.
But, even if man-made greenhouse gases do contribute to planetary warming, slashing U.S. emissions to zero would
bring no benefit, because steadily rising emissions from China, India, Brazil, and other rapidly growing economies
would almost instantly replace whatever gases we cease emitting.
Most important, fossil fuels power the economic engine that ensures justice and opportunity in America today.
Policies that make energy less reliable and less affordable reduce business revenues and profits, shrink investment
and innovation, imperil economic recovery, and hobble job creation, civil rights, and the pursuit of happiness and the
American dream.
Whether they take the form of cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, restrictions on oil drilling and coal mining, or EPA rules
under its claim that carbon dioxide “endangers” human health and welfare, anti-energy policies frustrate the natural
desire of poor and minority Americans to improve their lives.
As to coping with higher temperatures, restrictive energy policies send electricity prices skyrocketing, making it
harder for low-income households to afford air conditioning, and putting lives at risk. They send poor families back
to pre-AC misery of bygone eras, like the 1896 heat wave that killed 1,300 people in New York City’s sweltering
tenements. In wintertime, they make heating less affordable, again putting lives at risk.
I recently documented the connection between energy policies and civil rights. My Justice through Affordable
Energy for Wisconsin report focuses on the Dairy State, where I grew up. However, its lessons apply to every
state, especially the 26 that get 48-98% of their electricity from coal or have a strong manufacturing base. (The full
report can be found at www.CFACT.org)
Energy is the foundation for America’s jobs, living standards, and everything we make, grow, eat, wear, transport,
and do. Climate change bills, energy taxes, and renewable energy mandates deliberately restrict supplies of reliable,
affordable hydrocarbon energy – sending shockwaves through the economy.
Fossil fuels generate three-fourths of Wisconsin’s electricity, keeping costs low and enabling its $45-billion-a-year
manufacturing sector to compete in a tough global marketplace. Hydrocarbons sustain thousands of jobs in
agriculture, tourism, and other sectors of the state’s economy. They ensure that hospitals and clinics can offer
high-tech diagnostic, surgical, and treatment services.
They enable school districts, families, churches, shops, and government offices to operate in the black. Soaring
fuel and electricity prices would force schools to spend millions more for buses, heating, and lighting. That would
mean higher taxes – or reduced music, sports, language, and special education programs. Poor and minority
neighborhoods would be impacted worst.
Small and minority businesses are often young and undercapitalized. Increasing their operating costs, while
decreasing the disposable income of their customers, puts them on the verge of bankruptcy.
“A single worker in our Rhinelander fabrication plant can do the work of ten who do not have access to cranes,
welding machines, plasma burners, and all other machinery that allows us to cut, bend, and fabricate steel up to six
inches thick, and make all kinds of heavy equipment,” says Oldenburg Group Executive Vice President Tim Nerenz.
But the machinery and facilities are energy-intensive. If energy costs rise, the company would have to cut wages
and benefits or lay off workers, as contract prices are fixed and overseas competition is fierce.
Indoor pools and other facilities make tourism a year-round industry, sustaining local economies during frigid
Wisconsin winters, making resorts like the Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells popular jumping-off points for
cross country skiing, snowmobiling, and dining. Rising energy costs would reduce family vacations, hammer
bottom lines, force layoffs, and cause foreclosures throughout these communities.
In every case, it is blue-collar workers, low and moderate income families, minorities, and the elderly that are
affected most severely.
Nor are these impacts likely to be offset by “green” jobs. As Spain, Germany, and other countries have discovered,
wind and solar power require constant infusions of money from increasingly strapped taxpayers and energy
consumers. When the economy sours, the subsidies disappear, and so do the jobs.
Wind and solar electricity is expensive, intermittent, and unreliable – necessitating expensive gas-powered backup
generators, and further damaging family and business budgets. Plus, most of the jobs will be in China and India,
where low energy and labor costs, and access to rare earths and other raw materials that America refuses to mine,
supply wind turbine and solar panel factories that easily under-price U.S. firms.
The entire cap-tax-and-trade, renewable energy, and green-jobs edifice is a house of cards, propped up by claims
that humans are affecting the Earth’s climate. As EPA and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson repeatedly assert,
“Climate change is already happening, and human activity is a contributor.”
However, that is not the issue. The issue is whether our use of fossil fuels is now the dominant factor in global
warming and cooling, and whether future man-made climate change will be catastrophic. There is no replicable or
credible evidence to support that proposition.
Headline-grabbing disaster scenarios that forecast for 50 or 100 years in the future are the product of speculation,
assumptions, unreliable computer models, and articles by climate activists falsely presented as peer-reviewed
scientific papers in UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, news stories, and political speeches.
As my Wisconsin study explains, they are not supported by actual data and observations regarding historic and
current global temperatures, ice caps, glaciers, sea levels, rainforests, or cyclical weather patterns.
Energy taxes and subsidies, renewable energy mandates, soaring prices for everything we need – and severe
impacts on families, businesses, jobs, opportunities, living standards, and basic civil rights – might be justified if
we did indeed face a man-made climate disaster. But, even then, we should carefully examine the costs and benefits
of any proposed actions.
We should determine whether slashing fossil fuel use will stabilize our planet’s ever-turbulent climate, and whether
our limited resources might be better spent on adapting to future changes, natural and man-made, just as our
ancestors did.
If global warming science is inaccurate, dishonest, slanted or fraudulent, there is even less justification.
We cannot have justice without opportunity, or opportunity without energy. We cannot have justice by sharing
scarcity, poverty, and skyrocketing energy prices more equally – especially on the basis of erroneous, speculative,
or manipulated climate science.
We must therefore be forever vigilant, to ensure that Congress does not slip cap-tax-and-trade proposals through
during a post-election lame-duck session – and EPA does not shackle our economy and civil rights progress with
its job-killing “endangerment” rules.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Paul Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and the Congress
of Racial Equality (CORE), and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity